The PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana has solarised around 66 lakh households so far, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi said at the 31st CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam on Friday, highlighting the rapid expansion of rooftop solar across India.
The programme has an initial target of reaching 1 crore households. Joshi said the pace of installations had improved sharply, with the first 1 lakh installations taking 118 days, compared with an average of six days now. The ministry is aiming to reduce that average to five days shortly, he added.
The minister said 7.86 lakh households in Andhra Pradesh had been connected with rooftop solar under the initiative. The scheme is intended to expand household access to clean electricity and help beneficiaries reduce their power bills through rooftop generation.
According to Joshi, some farmers and households are recording zero electricity bills and earning from excess power generation. The statement did not provide a separate nationwide figure for households with zero bills or the amount of income earned by beneficiaries from surplus electricity.
Joshi also said India’s solar capacity had increased from 2.8 GW in 2014 to 175 GW currently. Non-fossil sources account for about 55 per cent of the country’s total installed power capacity, he said, adding that India remained on track to meet its target of 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030.
The minister referred to the proposed PM-KUSUM 2 programme, which is expected to further solarise agricultural equipment and pumps. The announcement places rooftop household generation alongside agricultural electrification as part of the government’s wider renewable energy expansion.
Renewable energy investments were also discussed at the summit. Joshi said 17 memoranda of understanding and three government orders in the sector represented investments worth Rs 43,871 crore, with employment potential for around 4,700 people.
He linked the expansion of clean energy to India’s growing electricity demand. Peak demand has risen from 123 GW in 2012, when a major grid collapse left northern India without power for nearly 72 hours, to 270 GW recently, he said. Joshi added that the recent peak demand was met without interruption, with nearly 33 per cent coming from non-fossil sources.
The ministry’s next stated milestones are to raise the pace of household installations to an average of five days and continue work towards the programme’s target of solarising 1 crore households.
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